Updates to Think Atheist

I am Morgan Matthew the founder of Think Atheist. I am here today to give you an update on whats in store for the community in the up coming months.

It's going to be a three phase transition.

Everything should be seamless and zero down time when these updates come out.

Let's get started.

First up is Groups.

Mini-networks: Each group now includes almost all of the features of Think Atheist — Blogs, Forums, Photos, custom Pages and Group Broadcast Messages.

Customization: Choose a page layout, add a Group cover photo, customize menu items, specify what Group members are called, and modify the Group URL.

Move Content: Move blogs, discussions and photos from one Group to another or to the main Forum, Blog or Photos feature. (if your an admin of both groups)

Automation: New ability to put members into Groups automatically based on how they answer profile questions when they join.

Sponsorship: Add header and footer ad boxes to each Group. Control the ad code yourself or give Group administrators the ability to run their own advertising. (This will need to be approved by the TA team before your ad goes up in your group.)

Messaging

The messaging feature will allow you to send and receive messages through the network. In short a better interface.

Threaded Comments

We will be adding a nine-level threaded commenting system.

Chat

The Chat feature encourages for real-time conversation on your network. It's a fun and easy way for members to participate in the community.

Search

Search your discussions and blog posts by title, keyword or content. Search members by name or profile questions. (right now searching is an embarrassing mess)

Social Channel Integration A new simple way to pull in YouTube and Vimeo channels. More details on how this works on a later date.

Music

Is not a supported feature in the new version of Think Atheist and will not be imported as part of the upgrade process. You may choose to copy playlists and recreate them using a third-party service provider like SoundCloud or Spotify, then embed the widget in a blog, HTML module, forum discussion, or your own profile page. (bandwidth is one of the main factors.)

For now that's whats on deck. I'll keep you guys updated with screen shots on what I have planned so far.

Replies to This Discussion

With our new backend code going into place we will be able to defend our site better. For now you can go to this link to report bugs/issues/spammers/etc: http://www.thinkatheist.com/main/index/report This can be found under the nav bar>my page>report an issue

Right now I can't get into chat without it freezing up. It just does not seem compatible with a touch-screen...or perhaps it's android issue? I'd love to chat again. I also cannot select the expansion button at the bottom right corner of typing fields.

Even on a PC chat sucks. (I am using windows 7.) It has a lot of glitches in it but the worst is that it seems to bog down in proportion to the number of tabs open to TA (as if they are spending a shit tonne of time synching with each other) I tend to open multiple tabs, one for each thread that is interesting at the moment, but if someone opens a private chat window when I have more than four tabs open, my system bogs down horribly. (If I were one of those folks who got an email every time someone posted on a thread I was in, I'd probably have even MORE tabs open, oftentimes to adjacent posts in the same thread--at least for long enough to realize, "Oh yeah that's right after the other one")

Suggested solution for chat--let it be configured to only appear on one tab page. Right now it's open on every single tab page, or you can disconnect and totally disable it on all of them.

Ive probably used three or four distinct different kinds of chat online and this one is without a doubt the shittiest, buggiest, and most poorly implemented.

A minor gripe is that the code that replaces character sequences with emoticons seems to have a bug. ") gets replaced with a " and a winking face. Someone might try to claim that ") is actually a code for the winking face (just like :) gives you a smiley), but if that is the case both the " and the ) should disappear when the substitution is made. And if it is, I suggest getting rid of it because it's redundant to ;) and is FAR more likely to be typed without meaning a winky face. (Carl Sagan said "We are made of star stuff.") would be an example.

Regarding the expansion dingus Kairan mentioned:

I've had the lower right expansion dingus render on the same part of the screen as the text or a graphic on the right margin (that hotlinks to somewhere I don't want to go, more often than not) and be totally unable to click on it.